
This is very cool stuff:
Very interesting article from Sony Computer Science Laboratory Paris (Developmental Robotics): Discovering Communication by Pierre-Yves Oudeyer and Frederic Kaplan, abstract:
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This is very cool stuff:
Very interesting article from Sony Computer Science Laboratory Paris (Developmental Robotics): Discovering Communication by Pierre-Yves Oudeyer and Frederic Kaplan, abstract:
Continue reading
Huge amount of University of California Berkely webcasts of course lectures. Subscribe to RSS feeds and listen to podcasts or listen online.
Courses include: General Biology, Solid State Devices and Introductory Physics. Course websites include handouts for the lectures.
A great open access resource.
I can’t believe I have mentioned MIT open courseware before but a search didn’t find anything. MIT’s effort is an excellent resource, many on science and engineering: Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering, etc..
MIT also includes the excellent: Visualizing Cultures – a gateway to seeing history through images that once had wide circulation among peoples of different times and places by John Dower (author of National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winning: Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II) and Shigeru Miyagawa.
“Instant” Evolution Seen in Darwin’s Finches, Study Says by Mason Inman
Since then the medium ground finch, a long-time Daphne resident, has evolved to have a smaller beak—apparently as a result of direct competition with the larger bird for food.
Evolutionary theory had previously suggested that competition between two similar species can drive the animals to evolve in different directions.
But until now the effect had never been observed in action in the wild.
…
Jonathan Losos is an evolutionary ecologist at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, who was not involved with the Grants’ work.
“This study will be an instant textbook classic,” he said.
Tour the underground accelerator at CERN – webcast led by the scientists who work there.
Lucrative college degrees, CNN article on NACE’s latest quarterly salary survey of recent college graduates.
Once again Engineering is very well represented with average starting salaries for:
Chemical engineering: $56,335
Computer engineering: $53,651
Electrical engineering: $53,552
Mechanical engineering: $51,732
The article lists no other degrees with an average above $50,000. Engineering education continues to pay off well.
Rudd Sound Bites is a new blog (May 2006) on obesity research from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.
This is a great example of pursuing a role to educate the public and create a public discussion of important issues. From what I see so far I think this will be a great way to do what they entend: “encourage global discussion of front burner news and the most critical issues regarding food policy and obesity.”
This is just the begining. They have not achieved much yet, that I can see. But they are on a path that will get them what they seek, I believe.
Good job.

Arctic Expedition lead by the Arctic Institute of North America to explore bacteria living in an artic glacier. The photo shows sulfur site with living bacteria.
More information on the study:
NASA took interest in this evidence of life in extreme conditions.

Bacteria made to sprout conducting nanowires by Mason Inman
School is in for meerkat youngsters (broken link – poor usability):
“Although there are anecdotal reports of teaching in species from chimpanzees to killer whales, until this year solid evidence was really lacking,” said Alex Thornton, co-author of the report appearing in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
…
Animals teaching their young is probably more common than it appears, Hopp said, but “a clear demonstration, and particularly in a wild population, is the uncommon part.”
“Thus, I think this paper is important, as it makes a clear and unambiguous case for the teaching behavior,” he said.
Webcasts of great engineering talks at Google via: Google TechTalks
Videos include: